OBS: Vampirsoldat #1 is a comic written by Joseph Burns with art by Carola Borelli and colors by Agnese Pozza. A group of supernatural allies are called upon when a ship comes into port under mysterious circumstances. This is a vampire-centric story that takes place in 1942 Russia. There appear to be two leads: One is a woman named Kris Jezdha who likes to fight with weapons and the other is a man named Dmitri Tepes who is also a vampire. The main plotline has our motley crew investigating what has transpired on a ship called the H.M.S. Mary Queen of Scots. During all this searching we’ll get some backstory on some of the cast and some lore on the supernatural in general. The action here is very bloody with a lot of rip-and-tear. Things here start intense and calm down but pick back up once the story is focused on the ship. The dialogue has an upper-class Old English feel to it and it’s mostly understandable with the occasional confusion. It never gets too wordy here, if anything this comic is too light. This is an entertaining issue that starts us out on the right foot by giving us action and story and leaving us with unanswered questions.

            This comic has an overall dark and brooding style. Though this is colored nothing here is bright besides the blood. The main location is the ship, and the interiors are drawn with good detail. Places like the steering room, the power room, and even the halls(I have never been on a boat and I didn’t research the proper name for these areas). The characters here are either not good at emoting or are very restrained. Either way we don’t see too much in the way of emotions on their faces in spite of how well they are drawn. The faces here have high enough amounts of detail to lets us know they are full of life. There is also a nice variety of hairstyles here. Most the creatures here are vampire types who may or may not have bad skin and pointy ears. The violence here is very graphic and comes with buckets of blood. The fight scenes flow nicely and you won’t get lost. There is some sexualization here with some revealing outfits on a couple of ladies and more topless scenes than you might expect. A strip(or burlesque?) club is also visited.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes.

“Would I like this?”

If you like supernatural tales taking place in the real world with a focus on vampires with a nicely sized cast and taking place in Europe this is for you.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

R. Blood, gore, and nudity.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“And pray tell, how many graves have you been in, Pui?”

 

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1749099392/obs-vampirsoldat-1/description

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 22

Violent Pages: 6, for 27% of the comic

Sexy Pages: 7, for 32% of the comic

 

**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**

 

Violence Level – 3

“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”

“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”

“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”

“This was a tournament arc.”

“All my life I had to fight.”

 

Gore Level – 5

“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”

“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”

“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”

“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”

“This is a slaughterhouse.”

 

Death Level – 4

“And everybody lived happily ever after.”

“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”

“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”

“Yeah this was a tragedy.”

“Think Gettysburg.”

 

Porn Level – 3

“Everybody kept their clothes on.”

“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”

“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”

“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”

“Oh. This is porn.”